


Vérité La Joie 2014

by dizzy



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M, drinking to repress, sadness but not like relationship angst sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-03-06 07:03:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13405965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: Phil has an unpleasant phone call, and handles it completely like an adult.





	Vérité La Joie 2014

Phil is day drunk, sitting on the sofa with bare feet and cold toes and the gnawing feeling in the hollow of his chest like he's going to cry and there's not much he can do to stop it.

The phone sits on the other side of the sofa, face down on a cushion. He’d tossed it there after ending the call with his mum.

*

Dan comes home an hour later.

He sees Phil on the couch, the glass of wine beside him. "You opened that red?" He asks, dropping his backpack onto the floor beside his desk. "The good one we were saving?"

Phil's head feels like it moves in slow motion when he nods, like that kind of animation where old frames linger behind a new one. He can't think of what that's called. He can't - he can't think. But he did open the good bottle. And before that he opened the cheap one they got in the Tesco order. A bottle and a half of wine, sloshing in his skull right now.

Maybe Dan won't notice. Did he put the first bottle in the bin? In with the recycling? He can't remember. Can't think, can't think. In his brain he pictures a thought, wiggling like a fish right out of his hands. He snickers, but he tries to do so quietly. Can't let Dan find out.

"You didn't start dinner?" Dan asks, sounding annoyed now.

Oh, Phil thinks. Oh, right. He was meant to have dinner on by the time Dan got back. That feeling of wanting to cry is back, sitting heavy on him. He blinks rapidly and says, "We'll order in."

*

Dan does notice, of course.

Not until he sees Phil trying to type the url of their favorite pizza place in, but it's obvious then when Phil's fingers won't push the right buttons.

"Phil," Dan says, brow furrowed.

Phil pushes the laptop off his lap and covers his face with his hands. He's not here, Dan can't see him. No one in the world can see him.

He doesn't realize he's shaking his head the whole time.

"I'll order the pizza," Dan says, taking the laptop and stifling whatever questions he has.

*

"What's wrong?" Dan asks. "I haven't seen you like this in a while."

It's the truth; neither of them were big drinkers even before Dan went on meds, but once he was they cut it out nearly entirely except for dinners out or champagne on a special occasion. Even since he's been off them, they only open a bottle when they're having a nice dinner in or friends are over.

Nothing's wrong, Phil wants to say, but the words won't come out of his mouth.

There's a headache creeping into his temples.

"I hate when you don't talk to me," Dan says quietly.

"I don't know," Phil says. "There's nothing wrong."

"I go out for three hours and you drink two bottles of wine?" Dan asks. "There's something wrong."

Damn, Phil thinks. Must not have binned the first bottle after all.

"Just seemed like a good idea," Phil mumbled. "Just wanted to loosen up a bit."

"You could have waited until I was home," Dan says.

"I know," Phil says. He feels tired now, and like he's in trouble for something. He hates when Dan is cross with him. That crying feeling is back. There are no tears, just a prickling discomfort.

He rubs at his eyes with balled up fists.

The intercom buzzer signaling someone at the door goes off. Dan sighs and gets up to collect their food.

*

Dan puts something on the television.

Phil is sobering up, just not as quickly as he'd like.

"You know that thing we've talked about before," Dan says.

Phil braces himself for another lecture regurgitated from Dan's therapist. They're not wrong - Dan and his therapist, that dynamic duo - but something can be right and still not right for you to hear if it's the wrong time to hear it.

"That thing where you're supposed to actually say when you're feeling something and not just box it up and shove it into that little room in the back of your mind. Because," Dan pauses, and sighs. His pizza will go cold, but that's okay. Phil hopes it does, because he's mad now, without really knowing why. "Because this is the fucking worst. When something is wrong with you and I don't know how to fix it because I don't know what it is."

"I don't need fixing," Phil says, voice as tired as he feels. "I just had a few drinks."

"You had a few drinks because you tried to pack one too many boxes behind that door to the room in your brain and it came flying open and you couldn't handle it so you did what you always do and found a way to avoid it." Dan states it so matter of factly, but Phil still feels as though he's just been slapped. “Not actually sure how you thought drinking would help, but I understand irrational decision making.”

Phil stands abruptly and walks away.

*

Of course, there's nowhere really to go. He's only wearing pyjamas and his bones feel heavy and it's cold out and he's not a masochist. So he goes into their bedroom and turns the lights off and gets into bed.

It's not even entirely dark outside. He's a mess, he's acting like a mess. What would his mum say if she saw him throwing a tantrum like a baby?

He buries his face in the pillow. He's a grown man. Grown men don't do this. Grown men talk to their boyfriends about what is wrong, or at least try to.

The worst part is that he doesn't think Dan will come down here after him. Dan will give him time and it'll be all the more humiliating when Phil does venture back upstairs. Dan will look cloyingly patient as he lets Phil fumble out explanations and apologies, and it'll be fine. Dan's so _understanding_ about things now, things like this at least.

Maybe a nap before he faces that.

*

He wakes at half three, head pounding and stomach rumbling. He can't tell if he feels hungry or sick, but as he sits up gingerly and slides his feet out from under the duvet and to the floor he decides maybe more hungry than sick.

Dan is asleep beside him, turned away. Phil doesn't even remember hearing him get in bed.

*

Dan finds him twenty minutes later, standing barefoot in front of the fridge. He's traded dry contacts for glasses, had two glasses of water and headache tablets, and now he's eating cold pizza waiting for the medicine to kick in.

Dan reaches past him and grabs a slide of pizza too. "You ready to talk?"

"No," Phil says, glaring slightly, but there's nothing deeper behind it this time.

"Mm," Dan says, and he just - waits.

He doesn't have to wait long. Phil knows the two ways this can go; they go to bed cross with each other and the tension lingers, or they deal with it here and now and hopefully by morning Dan will have decided to have pity on him and never mention it again.

"My mum - she told me something my granddad said - look, it's not important," Phil says. He doesn't want to repeat the words. He knows his mum doesn't agree, knows she thought the joke was 'old man says ignorant thing' and Phil would laugh along because his granddad is from a different era and that phrase seems to everyone else in his family like it's meant to excuse a lot.

It doesn't make Phil not feel keenly how his granddad doesn't approve of things about his life, though. Even if his granddad would never say it to his face - it's worse, somehow, that he wouldn't.

"So your granddad said something, and then your mum told you, and then you drank two bottles of wine?" Dan repeats.

Phil is aware how very much of a non-story it is.

He's also aware of how adept at reading between the lines Dan is.

"Okay," Dan says, reaching for the kitchen roll to wipe his greasy fingers off. "Finish that and come back to bed."

*

In the dark, in the quiet, his mind is still too loud. He's on his back looking up, one arm flung over his head.

"I'll replace the wine," he says. .

"Okay," Dan says, sleepily. He reaches out and puts a hand on Phil's chest, over the t-shirt Phil is wearing. They don't normally sleep in anything but pants, and only then sometimes.

He still doesn't feel right. He feels embarrassed and exposed and still a bit hungover.

"I'll get something even nicer," he says.

"Phil," Dan says. "It's fine."

Dan sounds exasperated and it stings.

"Yeah." Phil tries to roll over. Dan's hand stops him.

"Phil," Dan says again. "Do we need to go over the list of stupid things I've done because someone insignificant said something that made me feel bad?"

"No," Phil says.

"Because I will, if it makes you feel better."

"It won't." Phil isn't lying. "I'll be fine."

"No, you'll be fucked up and repressed and pretend everything is okay the first chance you think I'll let you get away with it," Dan says, because Dan will be honest when he knows Phil can handle it, when he knows there’s no other way to force Phil out of his own head and into the moment. "And whatever, I guess. I still love you."

Dan isn’t wrong; that brutal honesty more effective than any guilt trip or silent treatment. “My granddad likes you," Phil says. “But he thinks it’s about time I stop playing at being queer and find a nice wife, before anyone starts to talk.”

"Oh." Dan says. “Well, fuck him.”

“Dan!” Phil protests.

“No, seriously. Fuck him,” Dan says, and curls his body in toward Phil’s. “I know you won’t say it, so I will.”

“I love my granddad,” Phil says softly.

“Yeah, I know.” Dan’s fingers start playing with his hair. “And you feel like shit when you get mad at anyone in your family. So like, yeah, I’ll do it for you.”

The hair petting feels nice. “Okay,” Phil says, tabling the conversation - forever, if he can. 

In the dim moonlight he can see Dan's eyes open and looking at him, can see faintly how Dan's mouth turns up in a smile. "You're replacing both bottles tomorrow."

Phil laughs so faintly that there's no noise at all, just a tremor of it in his voice when he says, "Both bottles, yeah."


End file.
